You and Your Research (1986)

https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

by exolymph • 5 years ago

84 35 5 years ago

cs.virginia.edu

With remote work being so common, I regularly think about this section:

  Another trait, it took me a while to notice. 
  I noticed the following facts about people 
  who work with the door open or the door closed. 
  I notice that if you have the door to your 
  office closed, you get more work done today 
  and tomorrow, and you are more productive than 
  most. But 10 years later somehow you don't 
  know quite know what problems are worth working 
  on; all the hard work you do is sort of 
  tangential in importance. He who works with 
  the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, 
  but he also occasionally gets clues as to what 
  the world is and what might be important. Now 
  I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence 
  because you might say, ``The closed door is 
  symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But 
  I can say there is a pretty good correlation 
  between those who work with the doors open and 
  those who ultimately do important things, 
  although people who work with doors closed 
  often work harder. Somehow they seem to work 
  on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but 
  enough that they miss fame.

Possibly the best essay in the Stripe book of Richard Hamming's essays/articles.

jimsimmons2• 5 years ago

This makes sense when there was no internet. We are in the age of sensory overload. Back then you had to network to get the juice. Now the juice finds you

Hermitian909• 5 years ago

You'd be surprised how little of the important research information makes it onto the internet in an easily digestible format. I work with battery researchers and there's a huge amount of collective knowledge about what papers are fake, which researchers are frauds, or can generally be trusted etc. that is not documented anywhere online but easily available through in-person conferences and coffee chats.

The fact that the internet makes information widely available to everyone is exactly why this kind of critical information about who should and shouldn't be trusted never gets shared, it'd lead to immediate heated conflict that would consume the participants' lives. So (generally) no one shares these things.

But without that knowledge you're wading through a sea of plausible looking garbage.

honie• 5 years ago

Maybe it was a different time and/or environment, but that couldn't be furthered from the truth according to my experience — even if I read that as a metaphorical door.

Many of the people I have worked for/with who are amazing in objectively measurable ways, including fame, appear to balance their open- and closed- door times well.

If you're just chasing after fame and want to work on what "everyone" thinks is important, then I don't disagree that keeping your door opened and getting "all kinds of interruptions" is likely the way to go.

Also anecdotally, the "forever-open-door" people I have worked with who are always talking about "important problems" to solve; have huge networks; and are hopping from collaboration to collaboration working on a completely different domain of expertise every other year: they seem important to the community but, often on closer inspection, they don't actually produce much that is of substance.

Edit: added "I don't disagree" for clarity.

PennRobotics• 5 years ago

A wise professor I knew always scheduled a one-on-one research meeting directly at the end of office hours.

If office hours was an hour long, students come and go for an hour with questions plus some overtime duration of extra clarifications. If office hours was four hours long, students come and go for four hours plus the same bit of overtime. With no bookend between office hours and everything else, students would beg for one more question and push the boundaries of the open-door policy.

In their eyes, the instructor who slams the door in the student's face because, "It's two o'clock, I need to work," is impolite and insensitive.

Putting an unavoidable, important meeting at the end of office hours suddenly put the burden of being impolite on the students. Suddenly, office hours became more efficient and students, more punctual. The professor was no longer so unbelievable cruel for ending the open-door session (gasp) on time. And, most importantly, research could get done at a normal hour.

spaetzleesser2• 5 years ago

It's probably a matter of moderation. Having the door closed all the time has a set of potential problems but so has having the open all the time as we have found working in open offices. I like interacting with people but I also need to be able to have peace from time to time. A door allows me to choose when I want to interact and when I need peace.

mnahkies• 5 years ago

It's not a perfect solution but I use headphones as a symbolic door.

Headphones on means sending me an email or slack that I can respond to in my own time is preferred, off means I'm fair game.

itronitron• 5 years ago

or the offices with closed doors are in higher traffic sections of the building

yesenadam3• 5 years ago

Or watch him giving the talk in 1995 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw

It was the final lecture in his 31 lecture graduate engineering course "The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn":

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30

vymague2• 5 years ago

I wonder why this is downvoted. They mostly cover the same thing iirc. I think he mentioned he has been giving the same lecture multiple times at different venues.

teddyh• 5 years ago

I think this version has better quality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3msMuwqp-o&list=PLctkxgWNSR...

yesenadam3• 5 years ago

Ohh thank you, yes. Seems like enhanced version of the playlist I linked to. The whole lecture series in this enhanced version:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLctkxgWNSR89bl7hTOS3F...

vymague2• 5 years ago

There are several versions of this. There's this html page. There's the book. And there's the videos. Which one is the best?

derbOac2• 5 years ago

So Hamming says this:

  "And I can cite another person in the same way. I trust he isn't in the audience, i.e. a fellow named Clogston. I met him when I was working on a problem with John Pierce's group and I didn't think he had much. I asked my friends who had been with him at school, ``Was he like that in graduate school?'' ``Yes,'' they replied. Well I would have fired the fellow..."

but then makes the sudden shift to conclude that

  "One success brought him confidence and courage... One of the characteristics of successful scientists is having courage."

So on the one hand, he says he would have fired the fellow, but then also says that the fellow's success is due to him having courage. You could just as easily conclude his success was due to Hamming not being in charge. There are many environments where Hammings are put in charge.

Very few things in life are pure luck or pure personal characteristics; they're a complex, chaotic mix of things in different proportions for different people and circumstances. We as a society need to get past this, and to recognize our own hypocrisies in how we approach others.

travisjungroth2• 5 years ago

You really sliced up that quote to make Hamming look like a hypocrite. The missing middle:

"Well I would have fired the fellow, but J. R. Pierce was smart and kept him on. Clogston finally did the Clogston cable. After that there was a steady stream of good ideas. One success brought him confidence and courage."

Emphasis mine.

I think this is self criticism on Hamming's part, not a dig at Clogston.

btilly• 5 years ago

Thank you for pointing that out.

I have no idea what motivation it takes to take someone's words, twist them to make the person look as bad as possible, and then try to unfairly smear them.

wott• 5 years ago

It still makes little sense.

He says that one success brought that guy courage.

However, in the same "point", he says that it is courage which brings success. Applied to that case, it means that the guy already had courage that Hamming couldn't see but Pierce could see. Well, then it is not a success that brought him courage.

derbOac2• 5 years ago

I guess so, but to me it's irrelevant?

My point is there's many situations where JR Pierce wouldn't have been in charge, and Hamming would have. Phrase it as you will -- that Hamming wasn't in charge, or JR Pierce was, but the point is the same.

I agree Hamming was being self-deprecating but it seems strange to jump from the observation that he would have fired the guy, but that somehow it's Glogston's attributes that saved him?

To me it seems hypocritical and not at all twisting what he said.

dang2• 5 years ago

A perennial. Here are the threads with comments. They're not very large are they:

You and Your Research – Richard Hamming - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27451360 - June 2021 (1 comment)

You and Your Research - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25242617 - Nov 2020 (1 comment)

Richard Hamming: You and Your Research (1986) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24171820 - Aug 2020 (1 comment)

You and Your Research – A talk by Richard W. Hamming [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23558974 - June 2020 (1 comment)

You and Your Research by Richard Hamming (1995) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18505884 - Nov 2018 (10 comments)

You and Your Research (1986) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18014209 - Sept 2018 (10 comments)

You and your research - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14179317 - April 2017 (1 comment)

You and Your Research, by Richard Hamming - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10280198 - Sept 2015 (1 comment)

You and Your Research - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9279585 - March 2015 (1 comment)

Hamming, "You and Your Research" (1995) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7683711 - May 2014 (25 comments)

Video of Hamming's "You and Your Research" (1995) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5567448 - April 2013 (1 comment)

Richard Hamming: You and Your Research (1986) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4626349 - Oct 2012 (27 comments)

Richard Hamming: You and Your Research - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3142978 - Oct 2011 (7 comments)

You and Your Research - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=915515 - Nov 2009 (5 comments)

Richard Hamming - You and your research - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=852405 - Sept 2009 (1 comment)

You and Your Research - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=625857 - May 2009 (13 comments)

You and Your Research (1986) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=542023 - April 2009 (4 comments)

You and Your Research - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=524856 - March 2009 (1 comment)

Richard Hamming: You and Your Research - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=229067 - June 2008 (7 comments)

Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run? - "You and Your Research" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=52337 - Sept 2007 (11 comments)

You and Your (Great) Research - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13218 - April 2007 (6 comments)

Fission• 5 years ago

An open-ended question for you @dang — why don't you think You and Your Research gets more attention from the HN community? It's a good talk by a highly reputable source, about having an impact with the work you do. I personally hold the talk in high regard, and I'd expect it to do well on HN, but it seems like that isn't the case.

wheelinsupial• 5 years ago

It's cited in a fair number of comments over the years:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

dang2• 5 years ago

Oh I think it's well known and has gotten a lot of attention. In fact HN probably did a lot to expand awareness that it existed, since a lot of people here originally found out about it from PG's site. It's a bit of a puzzle why there weren't more comments on those old threads, but that's a different question.

glitchc• 5 years ago

This speech feels like it's from a world that doesn't exist anymore.

fuzzfactor2• 5 years ago

it's from a world that doesn't exist anymore.

You're right, I was there before, during & after.

Not at Bell Labs but I was already making progress individually using the approach he is talking about. As much as I could come up with on my own, I didn't know who Hamming was either.

But every single word of it rings true when you look at it.

This kind of thing is from a lost culture but regardless it can be found broadly useful in the 21st century.

Lammy• 5 years ago

"I vaguely noticed that I was not getting as good service as other people. So I set out to measure. You came in and you waited for your turn; I felt I was not getting a fair deal. I said to myself, ``Why? No Vice President at IBM said, `Give Hamming a bad time'. It is the secretaries at the bottom who are doing this. When a slot appears, they'll rush to find someone to slip in, but they go out and find somebody else. Now, why? I haven't mistreated them.'' Answer, I wasn't dressing the way they felt somebody in that situation should. It came down to just that - I wasn't dressing properly. I had to make the decision - was I going to assert my ego and dress the way I wanted to and have it steadily drain my effort from my professional life, or was I going to appear to conform better? I decided I would make an effort to appear to conform properly. The moment I did, I got much better service."

Now imagine they're judging you for something you can't change, instead of for your clothing.

zamfi• 5 years ago

Now imagine they're judging you for something you can't change, instead of for your clothing.

Most people don’t need to imagine.

__skk__• 5 years ago

I have all of my students read this and we have had many spirited discussions on the contents. A great motivator for someone at the beginning, middle and end of their careers! Here's my take: https://shrirang.karandikar.org/2019/10/27/you-and-your-rese...

j7ake• 5 years ago

This is one of the greatest talks of modern times on careers. Thank goodness it has been given several times and recorded for posterity.

You and Your Research (1986)

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